Stereoboard Speaks To High Contrast And Lung Prior To Hospitality Cardiff
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Written by Elliott Batte
For all the drum and bass-heads across the country, Hospitality nights are one of the most anticipated and appreciated club nights that comes around. Hosted by the massive Hospital Record label, who are home to the likes of High Contrast, Netsky, Camo and Krooked, Danny Byrd as well as Lung, Joe Syntax Unquote and Bop on their sister label Med School, Hospitality showcases the best of the best in drum and bass every time one of their prestigious shows comes to town.
They sold out Brixton Academy in London earlier this year, before taking their show around the UK to sell-out venues in Manchester, Bristol and Leeds, as well as coming to cities like Portsmouth, Brighton, and of course, Cardiff. It’s been around eight months since the last time the Hospital crew came to down to the Welsh capital for a party, so this one’s sure to go off. This time we’ll be treated to the likes of our hometown hero High Contrast, Hospital don London Elektricity, Austrian production duo Camo and Krooked (who’ve just released their new album ‘Cross the Line’ and will be showcasing their new live show alongside Messy MC and Ayah Marar), the Brookes Brothers, S.P.Y and local boy Lung – all hosted by Wrec, AD and Dynamite. The fun isn’t limited to room one either, as in room two you’ll find TC, Document One, Cutline, Gemini and the Astroid Boys performing all night long.
As Hospitality’s truly are the biggest shows on the drum and bass calendar, we decided to catch up with High Contrast, whose new album is due out soon, and Lung, who’s also working on an album for Med School.
Stereoboard: Hi Lincoln!
Lincoln: Hello!
Stereoboard: We’ve recently heard your new single ‘The First Note is Silent’ (embedded below), which I think is quite different from your usual High Contrast sound. Was this down to the influences of the collaborators Tiesto and Underworld?
Lincoln: Well, of course they have some influence on the track, but for me... it’s just my continuing exploration of sounds and my interests in kind of contrasts and juxtapositions. So for me it’s just continuing the thread of what I’ve been doing for more than ten years. I mean I don’t know, it’s up to other people to make a statement about whether it’s different but to me it’s all come from my head and it’s all the vibes.
Stereoboard: Fair enough! So is the rest of the album going to be a classic High Contrast, or will it be full of new or ‘furthered’ sounds from you?
Lincoln: Um, I think it’s a cohesive album; it’s more cohesive than any of the others I’ve made, probably because I haven’t used any samples or anything like that. I’ve played or written all of the melodies myself, which you know, is gonna create a different sound and texture than the previous work. But, for me, it’s more personal and I think it’s more personal and although it’s cohesive I think there is a variety of tunes building together to create a specific, overall feeling.
Stereoboard: So the question the fans all want to know – when’s the album and single out?
Lincoln: Well, the album is due out at the end of February. And yes, the single will be pressed and comes out around the end of October.
Stereoboard: The new video for the single is brilliant (I also seem to know about half the cast in it!) – what kind of message did you want to send with the video and how did you go about making it?
Lincoln: Well it was a tricky or kind of different video to any that I’ve made before, because normally a music video is shot in about three days, where as this was about three months. It was mostly shot locally around Cardiff but some was shot on tour in American and stuff. It involves using a lot of different people, but using them for about two seconds, you know it’s very kind of labour intensive – but a lot of fun to make as well. I didn’t go into it with any kind of script or anything, I just got the kind of feeling that I wanted to get across and keeping with what I see as the theme of the single itself, it’s trying to get across a sense of inclusiveness of oneness that unites everyone and everything in the Universe. So it’s kind of a big topic to approach haha. I think I just about pulled it off so I’m quite happy.
Stereoboard: It is a great video! So the last question on our lips is – are we going to be seeing you directing or making anymore music videos or anything else in the near future?
Lincoln: Yeah, I think whenever one of my own tracks inspires me visually then I’ll make a video, but really, my love is for cinema more than the music video medium. So I’ve got on-going projects that I’m trying to get going in that direction, so yeah hopefully, eventually it’ll be a film from me. But this current album has taken almost four years to come out, so God knows how long it’ll take.
Stereoboard: Cool – a film sounds very interesting! Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions.
Next we met up with Lung, a.k.a 20 year-old James Ellaway. He kicked off his career mostly producing dubstep, signing to the Kokeshi label. His biggest release was ‘Afterlife’, which received a remix from Kryptic Minds – and was catapulted into the limelight. After the success of ‘Afterlife’, his 170bpm efforts began getting more and more attention too – impressing the Hospital chiefs so much they secured him with Med School. He’s collaborated with High Contrast, remixed London Elektricity’s ‘Yikes’ (appearing on an album alongside superstars Logistics, S.P.Y and Enei) and now he’s got an album on the way. He also just appeared on Unquote’s new album to great critical acclaim. Check out what he had to say below.
Stereoboard: Hi James! Good to see you. First of all we’d like to know about your forthcoming releases on Hospital/Med School. What can fans expect in the near future?
James: Well, the first thing now is the album project. At the moment I don’t know whether there’s going to be a single before hand or whatever, like for the past 2-3 months I’ve just been locked in my bedroom going over all the tunes, giving them new mix-downs, just kind of bringing everything up to scratch. I think I’ve got about 18 tunes now – just a pool of tunes so that me and the managers can see what’s what and pick what tracks we think should go into the album. How many tunes are there gonna be on the album? Probably around 13-14 for the digital/CD album, but obviously it’s different for vinyl versions etc.
Stereoboard: Sounds cool. So is there a date set for the release yet?
James: Well it’s all coming together quite nicely, but that’s the next thing – I don’t have a date or anything like that yet, we’re kind of just nearing the end of that part of it... We don’t really need a deadline because we just have that pool of tunes that we’re going through and once we’re happy with everything, because when it’s all finalised, like the tracklist and everything, then it’s just go then really.
Stereoboard: You started off your career producing mostly dubstep, before moving on to the 170bpm range, and you’ve also been known to produce house. Is the new album going to be a drum and bass dominant one or is there something for everyone on there?
James: Well, I just did that track with Unquote which was nice because I haven’t really been writing a lot of dubstep recently – I have a fear of being pigeon-holed as a dubstep artist. Don’t get me wrong, I love the first stuff that I wrote – it got me where I am today. But it’s like my sound is so much different now compared to how it was then. I think that if you stick with one thing when you’re comfortable then great, but you don’t learn anything new and you don’t progress in the same way that you do when you’re producing different kinds of music. Drum and bass is my first love but it has been nice to come back to the 140 sort of stuff – the album is shaping up quite nicely because there’s all sorts of tempos on there. There’s techno on there, there’s some stuff on there that’s 120 but not house – it’s some kind of weird electronica thing. Then there’s some 140 stuff, some 127 stuff and then everything else is 170 plus. So there is a lot of diversity!
Stereoboard: You’ve come a long way since their days of simple bedroom productions and opening sets at Cardiff’s Aperture, and you’ve seen yourself featured on a vinyl pressing of London Elektricity’s ‘Yikes!’ remixes alongside the likes of S.P.Y, Logistics and Enei – three of the biggest names in the game. How does it feel to be held in the same regard as producers you may have grown up listening to?
James: Man that was crazy, that was just surreal. They’re three of my favourite producers, definitely, and like they have been for a long time. It was surreal enough to get asked to do it in the first place, but it is a wicked experience. But I was shitting myself at the same time – remixing the big boys! Especially when you’re up against people like that – they set such a good standard of work that you just think, ‘Aw fuck.’ But it was good, I was pleased with the outcome and obviously I really enjoyed doing it. It was just crazy man. Enei is absolutely killing it at the moment – his remix for Tony [Coleman, a.k.a London Elektricity] on the album was incredible. That’s the best one on the album, I fucking love that one!
Stereoboard: So you’ve signed to Hospital’s Med School – the record label that most up-and-coming drum and bass producers dream of. For the benefit of people who want to do the same, could you tell us just how did you come about to signing for them?
James: It was kind of like... well I’d been sending Ash [Howard, one of the label managers] a lot of tunes on AIM for a long time, just to get some feedback and stuff, and then eventually I sent over this version of ‘Relapse’, and quite luckily it was around the time they were compiling stuff for their New Blood 011 album. It went through a few different versions, like probably six or seven different versions before the final one, after shortening it and changing little bits here and there – but I think the end result was something we both wanted. And yeah that was great; I think it was March this year that came out. But that wasn’t like an exclusive or anything; it was more of a one-off signing of that tune, but I dunno I got a message then off the guys at Hospital saying ‘Do you want to come up for a meeting with us at the office?’, and I was like ‘Okay’ – I was nervous but excited, but I honestly didn’t know what it was about. And I’ve spoken to people about it and they’re like ‘Oh come on, you knew!’ but genuinely, I really didn’t know what to expect when I went up. That was surreal man because I was sat in the office with Chris [Goss, artist manager] and Ash having one conversation with them, and then I had a conversation with just Tony, and I think I was in there for about three hours. And that was like ‘holy shit, I’m sat in front of London Elektricity!’ – the fan boy in me wanted to come out, I was like ‘Oh my god!’. But yeah, the way Hospital have built up their roster of artists... they’ve already conquered drum and bass so with their Med School label, it’s an opportunity to expand out into the more experimental side of things, and showcase the less typical drum and bass – like they have Joe Syntax, Bop and people like that. But yeah! I was shaking after the meeting, I couldn’t stop smiling on the train ride home. It was the best thing feeling I’ve ever had.
Stereoboard: Thanks for talking to us James, can’t wait to see you at Hospitality and maybe headlining Aperture soon enough!
James: Speak to Dan about that! Haha.
So there you have it – you’ve read what some of the stars have to say; now go and listen to what they have to play! Hospitality Cardiff rolls around on November 5th. If you need tickets, click here. See you inside the place!
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Stereoboard: Hi James! Good to see you. First of all we’d like to know about your forthcoming releases on Hospital/Med School. What can fans expect in the near future?
